Except that it isn’t.
“So what happened after that?” Jaylen asks, sucking his teeth.
“After that?” Harper asks.
“Well yeah. You didn’t come straight home. You stayed for a while.”
“There was a storm,” I say. “Downed the flights and wrecked the roads. So we hunkered down and enjoyed Costa Rica from a fully stocked, private beach house.”
“I hope you didn’t enjoy yourself too much.” Jaylen says, and we both stop. I usually have a pretty good poker face, but I’m sure I look like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar right now. And from my periphery, I can tell Harper is also glazed over, afraid to breathe.
Jaylen laughs, nearly spitting out his second teacup of saki.
“I’m kidding. Jesus. You two got a little too much sun down there because you’re both lost in the sauce.”
I grin and let out a breath. Harper laughs, a couple of octaves too high before reaching for her glass of water.
“I am just glad that you finally see that Daniel is a piece of shit, sis. I am sure Ash told you all that while you were shacked up on the beach.”
My smile goes slack, and I do my best to shake my head at him using only my eyes. Jaylen knows the truth about Daniel. He knows about the bartender and the reputation Daniel has. That’s half of the reason I haven’t said anything to Harper yet. While it’s fucked up for me to know and not say anything, but it’s even more fucked up that Jaylen knows and hasn’t told her.
He’s her brother after all.
“I know he’s a jerk,” she says, grabbing a piece of edamame from the bowl. “Which is why I wouldn’t go back to him even if he wanted me back. He ghosted me, then blamed me, and then fired me. So no. I have no interest in ever speaking to him again.”
I let out a small breath, trying to keep her from hearing or seeing it. I am relieved that she’s dropping it at that. She takes a sip of her sake and smiles at her brother, who smiles back. Then she looks at me. She is still smiling, but there is something behind it. It’s awe’re pulling it offlook. But at the sametime, there’s a question mark underneath. Probably because she knows there’s still something I’m not telling her.
Our food arrives, and the conversation shifts while we share a giant assortment of sushi rolls. She finds ways to tell Jaylen about the trip withouttelling himabout the trip. We order another bottle of saki and laugh as Harper talks about being carried down the aisle like a sack of potatoes. I talk about how we fought over the bed every night and lost. She makes fun of the way I do lunges around the house. And I throw her under the conversational bus by saying how she liked it, same as she liked walking in on me in the shower.
“You walked in on him in the shower?” Jaylen laughs, almost choking on his sake.
“Yeah, well, he didn’t lock the door,” Harper waves it off as if it was nothing, refusing to look at me.
“But you knew I was in the shower,” I say. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you wanted to walk in on me.”
“And if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were in love with me,” she shoots back.
Jaylen spits out a laugh, and the conversation dissipates.
There’s a quiet moment that teeters on the line of awkwardness, and Harper gets up. “I need to use the restroom. Don’t talk about anything too fun without me,” she says.
“Oh, don’t worry, we’re just going to talk about you behind your back,” Jaylen says, and she swats at him, making me smile and making Jaylen laugh.
I watch her as she disappears down the hall, a smile still on my face. This is going surprisingly better than I’d expected. It’s almost nice, actually.
But then I see Jaylen’s face.
He’s not smiling anymore.
In fact, the scowl on his face makes me wonder if he was ever truly smiling at all.
Still, I keep it cool. “Something wrong, brother?” I ask, popping a piece of a tuna roll in my mouth.
“I guess I’m just wondering what really happened out there,” he says.
I make eye contact with him, as if I have nothing to hide. “I heard Daniel was coercing her into getting married. I think you know why,” I say, because we both know Daniel and how he plays women. In short, he has a thing for virgins and taking their V-cards by whatever means necessary.
“I know,” he spits out.
